Contact: Karyn Brown

STARKVILLE, Miss.— Renowned scholars from around the country will visit Mississippi State during the spring semester for the university’s Race in America Lecture Series.

Established last year, the interdisciplinary lectures provide MSU faculty, staff, students and community members a chance to hear experts on cutting-edge research relating to race in America. The series is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology, the university’s Marion T. Loftin Fund, Gender Studies program, and the MSU Critical Race Studies Group.

“Higher education provides the setting to examine social issues from a scholarly perspective, and the Race in America series provides this opportunity,” said Leslie Hossfeld, MSU sociology department head and professor.

Samina Raja recently kicked off events with a presentation titled “Building Food Systems Policy from the Ground Up.” Raja is the founder of the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at the University of Buffalo.

On Thursday [Jan. 26], Adia Harvey Wingfield, professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, will present “No More Invisible Man: Professional Black Men’s Gendered Interactions in Predominantly White Male Workplaces.” Her 7 p.m. presentation takes place in McCool Hall’s Taylor Auditorium (Room 124). A book signing will follow.

David Brunsma, professor of sociology at Virginia Tech and founding co-editor of “Sociology of Race and Ethnicity,” offers a Feb. 15 workshop titled “Publishing in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity: Demystifying the Process.” Designed for faculty and graduate students, the workshop will give practical advice on publishing in academic journals.

For more on the Race in America Lecture Series, contact Karyn Brown, College of Arts and Sciences communication director, at 662-325-6650 or kbrown@deanas.msstate.edu.

The College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,000 students, 300 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs and 24 academic majors offered in 14 departments. It also is home to the most diverse units for research and scholarly activities, including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities.

For complete information about the College of Arts and Sciences, visit www.cas.msstate.edu; its sociology department at www.sociology.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.